President's Message

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

The Journey has started......

By the time this report has gone to print my term as the President of the Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors will be at an end. At the outset of this message I have to say it has been a great privilege to have held this position over the last 24 months.

In last paragraph from my message last year I stated:

‘The next 12 months is going to be challenging, exciting and hopefully the start of a new chapter in the history of the Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors’

I don’t think I could have made a truer statement.

THE CHALLENGES

The main challenge for the Board, Chapter Councils and the staff at the head office, over the last 12 months, was to deliver on all the promises we had made in terms of:

• making the Institute more relevant to members, and

• lifting the profession’s profile in terms of respect within the industry from other professionals and within the industry as a whole.

Making the Institute More Relevant to Members Each year the CEO and the President of the Institute hold industry lunches in the major cities and regional centers of Australia. The consistent feedback we received in 2016 was the Institute did not appear to be relevant to members. Attendees this year commented:

• The head office is now responsive and reactive to members requirements

• The head office is now approachable and helpful when contacted by members

• Chapter councils found head office now provided assistance to the Chapter Councils re support and promotion of CPD events

• The fortnightly e-bulletins being seen as an excellent communication tool for members, with up to 40% of members regularly opening e-bulletins

• The Jobs Board in the e-bulletins now being accepted by firms with the Jobs Board fast becoming firms preferred forum for advertising vacancies

• The regular visits to Chapter Council Meetings by our CEO, Grant Warner, have given the Chapter Councils confidence in the ability of Head Office to meet Chapter Council requirements

As the title of this message suggests, The journey has started.

ANNUAL REPORT 2016-2017 /5

Lifting the Profession’s profile Through the Industry Lunches and other regular meetings both Grant and myself have held, the consistent feedback we have had this year is:

• The completion of the AIQS Academy was a credit to the Institute’s foresight in investment to online learning

• The AIQS Academy is becoming accepted as a preferred learning tool for firms when training their graduates

• The AIQS is now seen as a ‘Thought Leader in On-Line Learning’. The AIQS is in discussions with NZIQS, AIB and other professional bodies in licencing the AIQS Academy for use by their members for continuing professional development and training requirements

• The introduction of the Certified Quantity Surveyor (CQS) status. All industry bodies we have spoken to recognise the need for this higher status and are looking to AIQS Corporate Members to embrace this initiative

• New CPD requirements. Again, industry has unanimously endorsed this AIQS initiative in ensuring our members maintain up to date industry knowledge

• Regular meetings with Federal and State Government agencies, explaining the independent role a Certified Quantity Surveyor can provide in providing cost certainty/assurance to their projects, (amazingly this has not been done in a systematic manner previously, with a lot of government departments not fully understanding the role of the QS prior to these meetings)

• Promoting diversity within the profession has brought cross fertilisation with other profession bodies bringing Quantity Surveyors and the profession to the forefront in this debate

• Promotion of the profession at school’s career days and career advisor conferences. By attending these events in the major cities the AIQS is reaching tens of thousands of the general public who, up to now, have had no exposure to the Quantity Surveying profession

• Preparing articles for industry publications promoting the benefits of engaging a Certified Quantity Surveyor

THE JOURNEY MOVING FORWARD

For the AIQS to continue this momentum there are more exciting challenges that the AIQS must address and provide leadership in. Those being:

• Position the AIQS as a Thought Leader on the Utilisation of BIM as a tool for Cost and Asset Management

• Meeting the needs of an ‘Overheated’ construction industry in terms of the building, infrastructure and resources sectors

Position the AIQS as a Thought Leader on the Utilisation of BIM The AIQS has set up a BIM sub-committee in which the Board has tasked the BIM subcommittee to deliver a strategy that will assist its members and firms in embracing BIM technology.

BIM is just the natural progression from paper measurement with a scale rule (cut and shuffle), to 2D electronic measurement to now 3D electronic measurement. Most estimating software providers now provide the facility to measure in 3D and provide training on how to carry out the 3D measurement.

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This then brings us to the challenge facing Quantity Surveyors and our profession, how do we educate clients and the design professionals to engage with the QS from day one so the BIM model is set up in such a way that the model is an effective tool for Quantity Surveyors to prepare realistic and accurate cost plans that provide assurance for the client to make informed decisions.

The BIM sub-committee has a 3 year strategy to inform members and firms on the use of BIM technology initially via the e-bulletin platform.

Meeting the needs of an ‘Overheated’ Construction Industry As I stated in my message last year:

THANK YOU

This, I believe, is the biggest challenge the profession faces over the next 5 – 10 years. In signing off I would like to thank You the Members, the Board and Chapter Councils for all the support you have given over the last two years. My biggest thanks however, goes to our CEO Grant Warner and his team in Sydney. The work carried out by the head office has consistently been exceptional.

Finally, I wish President Mills every success during his term as President which commenced October 2017.

‘we are likely to see within the next 24 months an ‘overheated’ construction sector’

This is fast becoming a reality, with professional offices, across all disciplines finding it increasing difficult to secure good quality staff, construction firms reporting their books are full for at least two years and are now being ‘selective’ about which projects they will be tendering on.

This scenario provides a perfect opportunity for the Quantity Surveyor to provide leadership to the client and the design team, to ensure the initial project set up, design, procurement and delivery of each project takes into account the ‘risks’ associated with a booming market, something the Australia market has not seen since the late 1980’s.

Quantity Surveyors and the profession must rise to this challenge to ensure the service we deliver is to exemplar standards at all times.

PETER CLACK

AIQS PRESIDENT

ANNUAL REPORT 2016-2017 /7